Prof. Arzu Erdem,
Dean
The Faculty of Fine Arts, Design and Architecture is organized on two interrelated academic principles, the first of which is the inseparable totality of the varying disciplines of design. The other institutional aim of the school is, instead of providing basic vocational training, to train future practitioners with an intellectual and theoretical foundation that they will base their professional lives upon in the long run as young creative designers. In a world where techniques and means are continuosly changing and pluralizing, it is obvious that traditional academic attitudes intending to transmit stabile and limited repertories of information are simply outdated.
On the other hand, in an age when the boundaries between the professions are gradually complicating and blurring, interdisciplinary educational policies become a necessity. Though our programs seem to be radically different and divergent, they are intentionally defined to coexist together and to support each other. Therefore the main educational aim of the faculty is to make transgressions in and between different design practices. This means that, at Istinye University, in all the academic fields of interest, theoretical attitudes are basic and foundational assets of our education policies. Flexibility in this context is the primal aspect of our programs. From the macroscale of the metropolis and architecture to the microscale of virtual design practices, we intend to teach the students to think theoretically and to produce with an aesthetic and environmental sensibility.